Watch out: it’s Millipede Infestation Season!

While it may sound like the plotline of a B-grade horror movie, many home owners around Perth are all-too-familiar with what happens when Portuguese millipedes come marching out of the garden and into the house, making a new home for themselves in pantries, wardrobes and even bedding.

Realising you’re sharing your bed with creepy-crawly uninvited houseguests isn’t a very pleasant way to wake up, but that’s not the only problem: millipedes can excrete a pungent liquid which stain skin, clothes, carpets and floors.

These particular guests don’t just share your bed and get into your food: they’re also awfully hard to get rid of, which is where The Pest Guys come in!

‘Tis the Season for Millipede Infestation

Millipedes tend to be most prolific during the rainy periods of the year – spring and autumn. Of these seasons, autumn is the worst time for millipede invasions, but you may experience them in spring as well.

Outside in the garden, they tend to live in cool, moist environments, where they feed on decaying plant and animal matter. In the garden, millipedes do provide a useful function – although not so much when they’re chewing through your flower bed! Millipedes are happy as clams living in their natural garden habitats but, unfortunately, they’re also attracted to light, which often leads to en-masse millipede invasions. This is an unfortunate situation that’s just as unpleasant for the millipedes as it is for you: once they get out of the garden and inside your house, they’re unlikely to survive long-term.

It isn’t unusual for millipedes to end up inadvertently infesting homes in large numbers, and millipede control is often necessary. However, one session of treatment for millipedes is unlikely to be the end of your infestation in the long-term, which is why it’s important to address the problem head-on order on to keep your home millipede-free.

How The Pest Guys Treat the Problem – For Good!

On the day of your first pest treatment, you’ll notice a definite knockdown in millipede numbers, but what The Pest Guys are really trying to achieve from the pest treatment is a population cull before millipedes get to sexual maturity (at approx. 18 months) and start breeding the next generation of your millipede infestation!

They’re very prolific breeders, with approximately 2,000 eggs produced at a time, so culling the overall on-site population makes a big difference: treatment provides an immediate impact, but the real impact of it is felt 12-18 months later when numbers don’t spike as they would if left untreated. In order to maximise the effectiveness of these treatments, we often recommend 2 -3 treatments over an 18-month period so that you can stop as many of these repulsive insects as possible; rather than a band-aid solution that only keeps millipedes out of your home temporarily, our goal is to end your millipede problem permanently.

We recommend carrying out treatments during the peak millipede infestation seasons of spring and autumn, so that we can ensure the maximum impact on millipede numbers, and break the breeding cycles so that you can rest assured that you’ll be resting in a millipede-free home.